In 2012 when my birthday was fast approaching, I had pondered deeply on what to do to mark that day since I am not a fan of parties.

As I reflected on this, the word ‘give’ came to my heart and I made a decision that moment to be a blessing to the less privileged.

Having decided, I informed my family and a few friends and they consented to it.

On the 24th of December (the scheduled date), we visited Modupe Cole Memorial Centre, Lagos – a home for motherless babies and it was an awesome time of love, healing and fellowship.

It was not just about giving gifts as this was a norm for them at the home, but it was more about pouring genuine love and showing great care to those young and beautiful minds. It was a huge success to the glory of God.

The vision was blessing more lives than we imagined and it became registered as a Non Governmental Organisation in May 2015 after operating as Love Project since 2012.

Our core aim is to inspire hope and empower communities to create solutions to hunger and poverty by implementing sustainable programmes that will provide opportunities for people living in abject poverty and despair.

Youths, women, children and the disabled have been beneficiaries of this.

Reflecting on the past few years, Love Initiative has come a long way to achieving these:

2015: Vocational Training, Computer Training and Mentorship Programme at Love Initiative Academy,Idi Araba. Many other other things were also done.

On the 19th of December, we would love for you to come around because we know the children would be so delighted to see you.

We therefore anticipate that you join us at Lagos State Children Transit Home, Idi Araba at 10am for a time of celebration and exhibition with the children.

As commonly said; “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. It is sure a good way to end the session, after so much work.
Kindly check the flyer for more details or contact 08062431500.
It is going to be fun.

Fifteen years ago today i remember my grandmother praying and fasting day and night that i get back on my feet again. Woke up this morning looked myself in the mirror and i had a flashback of what i looked like back then, it has just been His grace all through he years. The other day when i was driving on the high way and the road was all crooked, I kinda lost control of the wheels for like a minute or two. I was scared to my bones and the first thing that flashed through my mind was is this how people die, in my mind i was already asking for the forgiveness of my sins. But my friend who was in the car with me told me not to be scared. This person didn’t even look worried a all. I was like I almost killed us and you’re there telling me not to be scared. That day I realized once again how important it is to be grateful to God for life. Looking back at how far I have come, all these years, all I can say is I am grateful to God for the gift of life. This morning as i woke up happy and excited that it’s my day, I am a year older today, it dawned on me that i am actually not getting any younger ( not that i didn’t know that before), I realized that as I grew I have made mistakes, learnt lessons and that my choices and decision making needs to change. I realize that i’m just a year closer to my grave (know i’m not thinking of death, everyone’s obligated to that anyway), although my wish is to grow old. I realized I gotta love, laugh, smile, cry, live life as much as i can because i don’t know what tomorrow holds for me , so I’m just gonna go with the flow and above all make sure I make an impact that would be spoken of after I am no more.

Hello! y’all, how’s it going. Somehow i feel the need to start making some explanations for why i’ve been away for so long. But sorry i’m doing non of that and you’ll know why soon enough. I hope y’all have been enjoying your summer break. Well mine is a story for another day, but in the mean time here’s a little something i believe will be of benefit to someone. Enjoy…

While growing up, I was taught to believe that there’s always a reason behind every action. All my life I have always had to have a particular reason before doing anything. I’m not sure if any other person feels this way or maybe it’s just me. I remember my dad always says to me in Yoruba whenever I got in trouble with my mum: “ai le soro ni ibere oriburuku” (not being able to talk is the beginning of stupidity). lol! Not sure I translated it correctly though. Well I guess what it means is that you should be able to talk regardless of the situation). Understandably, my dad was trying to make sure I don’t lack confidence. Anyways I was one to keep quiet and not say anything because I feel i wasn’t allowed to or because of the Yoruba “rule” that says a child must not talk when the parent is talking. All of these took their toll on me, so I developed the habit to always have something to say whenever I’m being questioned for my actions regardless of whom it is. This continued for a while until this particular day; I overheard someone say “you don’t owe anybody an explanation for your actions”. Since then I have always told myself to not always have to say something whenever people question my actions in anyway. The other day I was reading a blog and this caught my attention: “Bothering too much about providing everyone with strong explanations for your actions and tendencies is counterproductive. Of course you owe some people in your life acceptable explanations sometimes, however, be careful not to be sucked into a life of proving yourself with so many words just so everyone is satisfied with you. It’s never going to happen anyway.” After reading this, I jejely caught my sub lol. Anyway, I think I’m done rambling. Well I hope this helps anyone who finds themselves in this situation.

Thanks for stopping by. Auvoir!

P.S: for those of you who might have birthdays coming up, please click the link the right of this page: “links i like” for awesome ideas of how to celebrate your birthday(s).

Hi, hello. Aloha, Holla!. how’s everyone doing? Fine i guess. Anyways Let me go straight to the reason why we are gathered here today. (drum roll…) it’s the story about Lara’s life. if you are a late comer and haven’t read the first part, no worries it’s just a click away. So my people here’s another part to this story. Enjoy…

P.S: Please, excuse every choice of words used in this part of the story. That’s all i gotta to say. Okbye. Now back to the story…

He was always telling me, “I love you. You are such a pretty little girl. You are my little girl. You are my special little girl.” I’d do anything he wanted me to do. If he said, “Jump,” I’d jump. If he said, “Sit,” I’d sit.

I was four-and-a-half years old when he raped me. He must have been almost 60 at the time.

My family often spent Christmas at my grandparents’ house in Durban. After lunch we all went to have our afternoon naps. I was lying asleep on a bed when I was woken by the feel of something behind me. My grandfather had his hands in my pants and he was feeling me. When he put his fingers inside me, I told him, “Stop doing that. You are hurting me.” “No, I’m only tickling you,” he replied, as he carried on fondling me. Then he took off his pants and put his penis behind me. I can’t remember if he sodomized me or entered me vaginally from behind, but it was extremely sore. All the times mesh into one and it’s difficult to distinguish the first from all the others. My body can feel the sodomy so I’m one hundred percent sure that even if he didn’t sodomize me that time, he did it at other times.

The sodomy was the most painful thing he did. I think the vaginal penetration was only partial while he did full anal penetration, which is why it hurt so much more. I remember quite a lot of blood and my knickers being stained. I don’t know if the bleeding was caused by the tearing of my hymen, but I’m sure the anal intercourse caused bleeding because the pain was so intense. It was as severe as the pain I felt from tearing when I gave birth to my children. The first thing I did after he raped me was to go to the bathroom to wipe myself, because revolting sticky stuff was running down my legs. My mother taught us to be very clean so I was very disgusted by the yucky feeling.

When I was about five I had an operation which my Mom subsequently told me was to have my urethra widened. I thought — and still do — that my grandfather had hurt me so badly that the doctors had to repair my vagina.

I don’t know if my grandfather did anything to me before I was four. I think about it a lot and I’ve tried to dredge up all the memories I can. I sometimes have dreams about him doing things to me earlier. I have a memory of standing by a table and being fondled. I also remember him fondling me when I was sitting on his lap, but I can’t remember whether that was before or after the sodomy. I find it difficult to put things into time frames when I think back, but I believe that he must have fondled me before he raped me because it would be unusual for abuse to begin that way.

I always saw my grandfather as a big, ugly man, though he thought he was very debonair. He used to comb his hair back and wear cravats. He was a real ladies’ man. He often kissed me with his tongue in my mouth, which I hated. It made me feel like throwing up. It sickened me even more than the vaginal penetration. And I remember his disgusting yellow nicotine-stained fingers inside me.

I used to wear nylon panties with lace along the edges. The lace used to get stuck up my vagina and it would cut against me when he started touching me. Then he’d pull my panties down and put his fingers inside me. It was very sore but that didn’t seem to bother him. Or maybe he thought I was enjoying it so it couldn’t be sore. He didn’t think of me in terms of what I was feeling but in terms of what he was feeling. I know I made him feel good because of all the times he produced icky stuff.

He used to make me suck his penis. It was so revolting I want to vomit when I think of it. I used to kneel in front of him and he would put it in my mouth. He would push it right down my throat. He taught me how to suck properly by pushing my head with his hand and saying, “Do it like this.” I learned to do it really well and I still do it really well. I don’t know if he came in my mouth; I don’t want to remember that.

Between the ages of four and twelve, my family would visit my grandparents in Durban for holidays twice or three times a year for about two weeks at a time. He would do it every day or every second day, and sometimes twice a day. This continued for eight years with a break of one year when he went to live in East London.

What throws me is that I had such a special relationship with him before he started abusing me. I think I would have handled it a lot better if a stranger had done these things to me. But I loved and adored that man. As well as continually telling me how special I was to him, he’d say, “I’m only doing this because I love you so much.” I came to feel I was so special to him because he abused me. And it was our secret. That is where a lot of my feelings of guilt come from. It was sore and it was messy and it was sticky but it was okay because I was his special little girl.

I have difficulty reconciling the fact that my grandfather took advantage of my love for him when I was little. I thought that I could show him that I loved him by allowing him to have sex with me. The sex also made me feel that he loved me. But looking back on it now, I realize it wasn’t love at all, and that what he did to me was wrong.

I don’t think it ever entered my grandfather’s head that he might be harming me, or even affecting me. I don’t think he was bothered at all by what he was doing to me. I doubt that he ever thought about it.

Me and my sisters would get many more sweets when my grandfather was around. He would say, “Shall we go to the shops and buy some sweets? What sweets would you like? Would you like an ice cream and chips as well?” When I did anything sexual with him, he’d give me sweets, chips, ice cream or money. Eventually I realized what I had to do if I wanted these things.

When I was older, I wanted a tape recorder. After having sex with my grandfather, I said, “Shall we go to the shops now?” He bought me the tape recorder, then he did it [sex] again when we got back home. After that he bought me tapes for sex, but mostly he gave me things to eat.

I loved it so much when my grandfather started cuddling and kissing me. My mother and father didn’t touch me so he was the first person to do that. I had long hair when I was little and he used to stroke my hair and make me feel really special.

I was very big for my age. I was the size I am now when I was 11. I still wear the same clothes. I started developing breasts when I was ten or eleven years old. I used to feel really good and special when my grandfather used to touch them. He would say, “I want to watch you shower.” I enjoyed him watching me as I soaped myself all over. Afterwards he would take me and do whatever he wanted with me. I liked the foreplay, the touching and the stroking. So even though what he did to me was so revolting — and this is where I have a lot of conflict — I started liking it. He made me feel good in some ways and bad in others.

When I became an adolescent, my grandfather suddenly stopped calling me his little girl and started saying, “You are my woman.” He also kept telling me, “You are the best.” I was flattered and horrified at the same time.

My grandfather was really powerful, and he used to manipulate me with his power. I felt I was his victim. But as I got older, I realized that I could manipulate him. I started doing this a lot. I knew that I had something he wanted. He wanted me to be his good little woman, so I had to act the part. In the last three years of our relationship I began to feel I was in charge. For example, when I saw him getting hard, I’d say, “Okay, I want to do this quickly,” or “No, I’m not ready yet. Let’s go to the shop first.” And he would say, “Please,” which I loved. When I was little, he never used to say, “Please,” he just did it. Getting him to say “Please” was a thrill. I know that I’ve become a manipulative person because of this. I started reading trashy paperbacks when I was 11, and I suddenly put two and two together. My grandfather was doing the same things to me that I was reading about in these books. I started reading about incest and thinking, “Hang on. My grandfather is doing this to me in real life!”

My grandfather had a take-away shop in Durban. He had a tattersalls upstairs where people bet on horses. Once when I went there I was wearing shorts. My grandfather was fingering me downstairs. Then he told me he had to take some food upstairs and asked me to go with him. He made me walk in front of all the men in the room. While stroking my breasts in front of them he said, “This is my girl.” Some of them said things like, “You are so lucky to have this girl.” I felt absolutely mortified and ashamed with all these men looking at me. Then, as I walked past them, they all touched me. My grandfather was saying, “This is mine. You can’t have her.”

I hated it. I was 11 the one time I told my grandfather that what he had done to me was bad. He had me on his lap while he was drawing. Then he stopped drawing and started stroking me and feeling me. It felt nice, but dirty. Then he wrote on a piece of paper, “You have such beautiful legs and I want to stroke them and I want to kiss your cunt and stroke your butt.” Then he said, “I want you to read this to me.” I got all brave and I said to him, “You are a dirty old man! Why are you saying this to me?” He started crying, which gave me the biggest thrill I’ve ever had in my whole life. He said, “How can you call me that? I love you. I would never hurt you. You are mine, and no other man is ever going to have you.” My grandfather died when I was 12 years old. I was taught at Catholic school that if I prayed for things, I would get them. I used to pray every night, “Please let my grandfather die. Please let him die.” One day my mother told me and my sisters that my grandfather was very, very sick and that she had to catch a plane to go visit him in Durban. I was so happy when my Dad told us, “Your grandfather has died,” that I cried. But I also felt very guilty. I thought he had died because my prayers had been answered. Sometimes I wonder what I would have done to my grandfather if he’d still been alive.

My grandfather didn’t sexually abuse my sisters who were still very young when he died [5 and 7 years old]. But he probably wasn’t content to just have me for a few weeks each year. In fact I have a very, very strong suspicion that he abused one of my cousins who also lived in Durban. She’s one of my mother’s youngest sister’s three children. She is about twenty now and I see a lot of me in her. She also went through a stage when she was very promiscuous. When I’m older and I’ve got to the stage where my mother’s word isn’t law anymore – because it still is now — I’ll go to Durban to speak to her. Right now my mother wouldn’t tolerate my doing this.

To be continued…

Thanks again for stopping by, i’d like you to leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Hello everyone, how’s y’all doing. i’m pretty sure you’re fine. Happy spring break to everyone on spring break. And to those not on spring break, enjoy the rest of the week. While everyone i know is enjoying their break in a better way, i’m spending mine like this

Oh well, i guess it’s part of enjoyment. Lol! Anyway back to why i’m here. Got a story to share with y’all, and since it’s a very long one i’m going to split it in series. So here goes the story about Lara’s life. Enjoy…

I love my Dad. He’s super. And he’s a brilliant man. But he never used to hug and kiss us much. My Mom was also never into touching. Her hugs have been limited to occasions when we say hello after she’s been away a long time or when we say goodbye. I am 23 years old now and if my mother has hugged me ten times, it’s a lot. And she never complimented me when I was growing up. She’d always say things like, “You’re too fat.” I was very clever at school, an “A” student. I tried so hard to get her to say, “Lara, you are the best!”

My Mom and her two younger sisters had a very strict upbringing. My grandfather didn’t allow them to have boy friends or to wear make up or to go out. She also brought us up very strictly. I was a real mommy’s girl who never did anything wrong. She only allowed us sweets on a Friday night, and we only got a small amount of pocket money, not because my parents couldn’t afford it, but because my mother didn’t believe in spoiling her children.

When I bathed I had to take off my pyjamas next to the bath and put a towel around me when I got out so nobody could see me naked. I was never allowed to touch anything below my waistline. My Mom thinks children’s sexual exploration is revolting and disgusting — probably because her father [Lara’s perpetrator] brought her up with weird ideas about sex. How ironic that my grandfather taught her that sex is bad and that she must be good, and then he raped me! I feel sorry for my Mom for having my grandfather for a father. If I am screwed up now because he raped me as a child, I can only imagine what I would have been like if he’d been my father!

My Mom never told us girls anything about sex. She still hasn’t told my sisters the facts of life although Courtney is 16 and Melissa is 18. By the time she got around to broaching the subject when I started my period, I had learned about sex firsthand as well as at school.

My mother taught us to “respect your parents.” I don’t like my Mom but I do respect her. Respect is like “in awe;” you treat them like God. You don’t do anything to juggle their world. I feel like I’m her mother sometimes and that I have to protect her.

My mother told me that my grandfather was very charming when she was growing up. Although he was married, he used to go out with a lot of women. He always dressed for women; he’d wear those cravats and paisley scarves, and he dyed his hair when it turned grey. He was very, very vain, and he was successful with women. But he got to the stage where it became harder for him to get them because he didn’t want the old ones — he wanted 20-year-olds. But this didn’t prevent my Mom from putting him on a pedestal. Although he died 11 years ago when I was 12, she always said, “If your grandfather had been alive, he would have liked you to do this,” and, “Your grandfather did this,” and “Your grandfather did that.” It used to get on my nerves. Here she was telling me what an amazing man he was and I knew that he was an absolute pig.

Please take the time to read this till the end, I’m not going to preach and I’ll try as much as possible not to get boring.

Thank you Fafa for the opportunity to write for your blog, which by the way is not ONLY for teenagers. I was starting to feel old when I saw the name of the blog. Lol! But then I found solace in remembering that Fafa is not a teen (you didn’t hear it from me), so I got comfortable. Abeg Fafa, allow us *clears throat* the older generation feel among…

Ok, I’m done. Unto business.
I’m a girl, so I’m going to do most of this article from MY perspective. No vex.

I went to a boarding school and then for the short time I was in the tertiary institution before I came here, I was staying in the hostel too. So, I always thought…